"There was no conversation. It was a 30-second conversation," O'Leary said. He said Wisniewski simply read a statement he had given to a reporter about O'Leary running for Assembly.

O'Leary received the Democratic Party nomination after indicted Assemblyman Joseph Vas announced he would not seek election.

Vas is under indictment by the state and federal authorities on charges of using Perth Amboy funds for personal expenditures and laundering donations to his unsuccessful congressional campaign.

Wisniewski said he made the call because of the "very very difficult environmental in the state," a reference to the federal indictments last week of 44 people, including three mayors from Bergen and Hudson counties and two assemblymen from Hudson and Ocean counties.

"I was just reflecting on the current state of affairs," Wisniewski said when asked why he called O'Leary.

Last month, O'Leary blasted the anonymous author of an eight-page diatribe against his family and other city officials that has circulated around the city and Middlesex County for several weeks, spreading rumors that O'Leary and the city are under investigation.

The letter followed several weeks of rumors swirling around South Amboy and Middlesex County that O'Leary and his brother, Tom, were under investigation by the Attorney General's Office and the U.S. Attorney's Office for actions stemming from their insurance business. The rumors went so far as to say the state had dropped subpoenas at city hall and on the O'Learys' business. The Attorney General's Office, in accordance with standard procedure, would neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.

O'Leary has said neither he nor his brother have received any information from the state or federal authorities that they are under investigation or the targets of an investigation.

Wisniewski and O'Leary are running against GOP candidates Peter Kothari, a Woodbridge businessman, and Richard Piatkowski of Perth Amboy.